Donations

As you can imagine the cost of travel and accomodation to photograph cemeteries around the state is enormous.  Living in Adelaide, and having now completed most cemeteries within a 400 klm radius, it now requires day trips or overnight stays to add to this resource. At times we travel over a hundred klms to a cemetery and they only contain a couple of headstones. 

Some people believe that I only photograph while away on holiday and this is how I pay for our 'annual holidays'.  This statement is completely false.
At no time have I ever done this.  If we go away, we specifically go to photograph cemeteries, and at times leave at 4.30 in the morning and drive for hours to get to the first cemetery.  We can then 'squeeze in' up to 35 cemeteries in three days travelling hundreds of kilometres between towns, returning back to where we are staying well after dark each night, only to find all places closed and no where to eat.  No "4 star" motels are found in country towns as you can imagine, so the comments that we stay in 'nice places and have a nice time doing other things' are not true.  Photographing in 42 degree heat or sinking ankle deep in mud as it is pouring with rain are common 'experiences' for us.  We usually fall into bed around 9.30pm exhausted and ready to 'attack my list for the next day' - which is usually longer that we could possibly fit in daylight hours.  Husband can get very cranky and many a time we have driven for hours not talking as he has had enough!!!!

In the 2007/2008  financial year we travelled over 11,500 klms specifically to photograph cemeteries incurring a loss of over $6500.  
Again in 2008/2009/2010 nearly 6,000 klms per year were travelled and a loss of over $5,000 per year incurred.

Last year we have travelled to Whyalla, north to Orroroo areas and Mount Remarkable areas and most weekends we travelled to photograph cemeteries. 

I even venture out on my own some weekdays in the cooler weather.   One trip to Kangaroo Island cost $578 just in fares, car transport on the ferry and for 2 nights accommodation.

Many weeks, even months, are then spent sitting at the computer, looking at each photo and renaming the files.

For you to appreciate the time spent, visit your nearest cemetery, photograph 50 headstones and return home and rename them on your computer.  Multiply this time by 100 and this is about the time it takes to complete a Medium sized cemetery.  

Whilst the sale of the odd few disks went towards offsetting some of these costs, it no where near covered the expenses incurred.

If you would like to show your appreciation of the work that has been done, and feel that you would like to make a donation to the associated costs incurred, you can do this via the 'Pay Pal' button at the top of this page. 

I was charging $2.50 per individual photo when they were available for sale via the website and full cemetery disks ranged from $3 for a small cemetery to $120 (contained over 12,000 photos).

I wish everyone well with their family research,

Many thanks